Sunday, February 10, 2013

Lowering interest rate and making credit abundant doesn't make employers hire more workers.

The Federal Reserve's policy of targeting unemployment is based on a curious faith that low interest rates and lots of liquidity sloshing around the bank system with magically lead employers to hire more workers. I say this is a curious faith because it makes no sense. In effect, the Fed policy is based on the implicit assumption that the only thing holding entrepreneurs and employers back from hiring is the cost and availability of credit.

But as anyone in the actual position of hiring more staff knows, it is not a lack of cheap credit that makes adding workers unattractive, it is the lack of opportunities to increase profit margins by adding more workers.

If the economic boom of the mid-1980s proves anything, it is that the cost of credit can be very high but that in itself does not restrain real growth. What restrains growth is not interest rates, it is opportunities to profitably expand operations.

What the Fed cannot dare admit is that in a crony-capitalist, globalized, State/cartel-dominated economy, there are few profitable opportunities, regardless of the cost of credit. Yes, there is a natural-gas boom in the Dakotas, but outside of energy plays the harsh reality is that the only way for most businesses to increase profits is reduce labor, not hire more workers.

The second survival tactic is to lower labor costs by recycling full-time, full benefits jobs into part-time or lower-paid jobs. Rather than pay insanely high healthcare premiums on full-time jobs, businesses lay off full-benefit workers and replace them with a mix of part-time workers who receive no benefits or contract workers who handle their own healthcare costs.

There is another way to recycle jobs to reduce costs: fire a $90,000/year employee and hire someone for $60,000 to do the same job. Mish has shown that virtually all the gain in employment since the start of the "recovery" is in the 55+ age group: Startling Look at Job Demographics by Age (Mish)

Older workers often complain that they have been replaced with "cheaper" younger workers who will work for less, but the real trend to is to hire higher-productivity workers for less pay. In most cases, as revealed by the above chart, the older workers are higher productivity for a number of self-evident reasons: they won't take maternity leave, they know their work well and have proven a work ethic that younger workers may not have had the opportunity to prove.

It is difficult to transition to a new career or get a job as an inexperienced worker for the reason that employers want someone who can be productive on Day One. Sadly, it is too costly and risky to take chances with on-the-job training or mentoring; it is lower-risk to find someone who can do the work immediately.

Older workers' healthcare insurance costs are skyhigh, but the solution is to hire older workers as consultants and push the costs of healthcare onto them. In many cases, older workers are covered by a spouse's insurance, so they can afford to take a job that offers no benefits.

The other trend the Fed cannot dare recognize is that cheap credit enables employers to reduce labor by investing in automation and software. If opportunities are scarce (and they are), or if the business is hanging on by a thread, then hiring more employees is the last thing an employer would do to boost productivity: the solution is reduce headcount and invest in tools that make the remaining employees more productive.

We can see this reality in the following charts: full-time employment has returned to levels reached 13 years ago, but median wages are lower, reflecting the "recycling" described above.

Meanwhile, labor's share of the non-farm private economy has fallen off a cliff, along with money velocity, which measures the relative activity of cash and credit:

So exactly what mechanism is the Fed trying to boost with super-low interest rates and massive liquidity (free money) in the banking sector? Answer: push businesses into high-risk ventures.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans: “The investment climate seems to be one where people are increasingly understanding that very low interest rates on super safe assets are going to be around for a while. And if they’re worried by that they need to take on more risk - and taking on that more risk will help get the economy growing.”

In other words, the Fed's policy is to push for more mal-investment. There is no other way to describe the flow of money into risky, marginal ventures.

Note to Fed: there is too much of everything. Too many restaurants, too many apps, too many empty dwellings (19 million at last count), too many malls, too many nail salons. There is too much junk for sale everywhere, from retail outlets to online to jumble/garage sales. The developed world is awash in overcapacity in every sector other than a relative handful of special equipment/services (deep-ocean drilling rigs, etc.)

Pushing businesses to borrow money to gamble in risky ventures is precisely what happened in Japan in the late 1980s. With interest rates low and credit in abundance, bank reps went around to enterprises small and large begging them to borrow money for essentially any reason.

The net result: massive bubbles across asset classes and an overhang of debt that remains 20+ years later, as unpayable now as it was in 1992. That is the result of pushing enterprises into risk-on bets: bubbles and collapses.

What those with access to the Fed's free money--big banks and hedge funds--are doing with the zero-cost credit is invest in rentier skimming operations: buying 5,000 single family homes, buying $1 billion in apartments and homes to rent out, etc.

“It’s hard to find a private-equity firm on the planet that doesn’t have a strategy in this space,” Gary Beasley, chief executive officer at Waypoint Homes, said last week at the American Securitization Forum’s annual conference in Las Vegas. The Oakland, California-based company has bought homes in California, Arizona, Illinois and Georgia.

How many jobs are created by rentier skimming? Very few. Get the houses painted, hire a few handypeople to take care of maintenance and a few people to handle the property management.

The other way to make money with nearly-free credit is to chase risk-on assets, for example stocks. Why would any hedge fund or bank trading desk with easy access to the Fed's free money bother taking risks in the real economy which is burdened with massive over-capacity and sclerotic State-mandated cartels (healthcare, defense, etc.) when the easy money is in chasing assets higher?

How many jobs are created by chasing assets higher? Maybe the Fed thinks that high-end Manhattan restaurants will add staff to handle the influx of new money skimmed from the stock and bond markets, but if they think rentier/speculative skimming is going to add millions of jobs to the economy, they are delusional.

Perhaps if any of the Fed governors had ever operated a real business in the real economy, the board might have a somewhat better grasp on reality.

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability3. Diminishing returns4. Centralization5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economyComplex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).
We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Terms of Service

All content on this blog is provided by Trewe LLC for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.

Our Privacy Policy:

Correspondents' email is strictly confidential. This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by third-party advertising networks such as Adsense and Investing Channel may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising; if you wish to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising, please go to Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative)If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly. Websites and blog links on the site's blog roll are posted at my discretion.

Our Commission Policy:

Though I earn a small commission on Amazon.com books and gift certificates purchased via links on my site, I receive no fees or compensation for any other non-advertising links or content posted on my site.

Weekly Musings Reports

"What makes you a channel worth paying for? It's actually pretty simple - you possess a clarity of thought that most of us can only dream of, and a perspective that allows you to focus on the truth with laser-like precision." Jim S.

The "unsubscribe" link is for when you find the usual drivel here insufferable.

Contribute via PayPal

Why I gratefully accept donations and why you might want to donate:

A 95-minute movie with 10 minutes of ads and a small popcorn costs $25.
If you enjoyed this site for at least 2 hours this year, and you donate $25, you already received more entertainment than you did from the movie. The other 100+ hours of enjoyment you receive here is FREE.

Subscribers and donors of $50 or more this year will receive exclusive weekly Musings Reports.

You have the immense moral satisfaction of aiding a poor dumb writer who seeks to inform, entertain and amuse you.

Contribute via Dwolla

Dwolla members can now subscribe to the weekly Musings Reports with a one-time
$50 payment; please email me,
as Dwolla does not provide me with your email: